What follows is probably pretentious. Apologies if it’s insufferable. — &ldq
What follows is probably pretentious. Apologies if it’s insufferable. —“Don’t you find it hard climbing up all those mountains?” a friend asked me the other day. While it’d be outright lying to say there’s not some challenge involved in it, I don’t believe so. Among the many things I love about it, there are two key things that speak to me particularly. The first is that anytime you begin a journey with a destination, there’s a sense of completion and reward on getting to the top. The accomplishment in that alone is enough to get you through the challenge. The second is that at the top of any mountain you’ll find any or all of three things: beauty, power and majesty. There’s the beauty of the scenery, the landscapes and the vistas you encounter. It’s enough to take your breath away. And no matter how many brilliant photos you can see of the same, nothing compares to the real thing. There’s the power of the elements, either sun shining on you from above or wind and rain howling against you (or anything in between), and it’s not only humbling to be at the grace of nature, but it’s another reward to your efforts. And there’s the majesty of your surroundings, knowing that you’re dwarfed by everything about you in either your physical presence on a vast arena, or the awareness that the duration of your life and lived experiences are infinitesimal in comparison with the age of the land you find yourself in. I’m not a religious person (at my most spiritual, I’m a nonchalant agnostic), but there is enough in that majesty to make you feel something greater, even if it’s just the land around you. And faced with those three things, your mind can’t help but be drawn to them. The social obligations you have, or the pressures you face, or the anxieties you feel about friends, family, work and everything else that beats a person down disappear, and you’re instead calmed in the most tranquil oblivion where nothing matters except the moments you’re in right then and there.So no, it’s not hard to climb a mountain. The hard part comes in having to come back down. #hiking #Tasmania #tas #adventure #peace #TheNeedles #fromtheheart -- source link
#hiking#theneedles#fromtheheart#adventure#tasmania